Monday, April 23, 2007

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

Well, that didn't take long.

Only midway into the election period, it seems that the ABS-CBN News Channel is already scraping the bottom of the barrel with its senatorial panel. In the line-up today: actor Cesar Montano, KBL bet Eduardo Orpilla, and failed putschist Antonio Trillanes.

It might as well have been called the ANC Comedy Hour.

Montano and Orpilla, it seems, live in some sort of Never Never Land.

Questioned as to how he would maintain the quality of education without raising tuition fees or commercializing school properties, Montano said:

But it seems that was a marginally better and far more realistic response than former police general Orpilla's. The KBL bet's response to everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING! -- hinged on the use of Marcos wealth.

Ah, yes, we live in the land of wishful thinking.

By far the most sensible of the three was Trillanes. The lieutenant at least had a position on the needs of the armed forces. He was also well-versed in the constitutional right to rebel, but I suppose that's because he has practical experience.

Trillanes, though, looked like a cat caught in the headlights. Every question would freeze him up and not until some coaxing from emcee Ricky Carandang would he go off in fits and starts.

I could almost see Ricky Carandang trying his darnedest best not to snicker.

Hi, Jon: from the standpoint of exposure time, yes. Access to TV in the Philippines, for most people, comes at noon or at the end day, and most likely it's tuned to the entertainment channels.

But what about the rest of the day? Radio is the incessant background noise. It's what people hear in the taxis, in the FX, sometimes even in the office. And the corresponding news and political content is much higher, too, at least for the AM listeners.

Radio is also a dominant factor for oveseas filipinos who want to tune in to local events. Sure we do have the news portals that give breaking news, but since radio is low latency and can be easily streamed on fiber so people outside the country can tune in real time. Even on cable btw.